


Hazel and Chestnut

by luna_plath



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, One Shot, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-Canon, Romance, Suicide, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For takatsukishiori’s birthday!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Hazel and Chestnut

**Author's Note:**

> For takatsukishiori’s birthday!

The bloodstains on the floor of the library were hard to miss. Harry stood at the edge of the room, his arms folded, taking in the little details of the Parkinson home. It couldn't hold a candle to places like Malfoy Manor, but as far as purebloods went he was impressed.

Harry had qualified as a full auror only recently, even though he’d been operating in the field under close guidance for some time. The Auror Office had been having a slow week as far as dark activity was concerned, but the elder generations of Parkinsons had formed loose financial ties with Voldemort, so the head of the office sent him out to the estate as a precaution.

But, in Harry’s opinion, it didn’t look like anything more than a suicide. Edward Parkinson had been a husband and the father to two children, one of them his erstwhile classmate Pansy. Part of the inquiry that Robards had assigned included, at the very least, a statement from the family, if not a full interview. Harry brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes and made for the drawing room, where he'd been told to find the remaining Parkinson heir.

The girl on the settee was pale and subdued, with a frown that suggested she’d been thinking--not at all the person he remembered from school. Harry stood in the doorway for a moment, rapping his knuckles on the hardwood out of politeness.

“Can I have a word?” he said, struck by the oddness of the circumstances. The last time he’d seen Pansy she’d been trying to offer him up to Voldemort--and now she was the vulnerable one, lower in standing after the war and burdened with the untimely death of her father.

He found it difficult for him to care. Much.

“If you like,” she replied, a cup of tea sitting untouched on the side table, a rose pattern decorating the rim. Her hazel eyes were as cool as ever and Harry thought they’d never looked so big. Maybe he just wasn’t used to facing her directly.

“The Auror Office usually takes a look at these things to make sure there aren’t any...mitigating circumstances. It appears that, in this case, things are what they seem. The investigator is fairly certain that your father’s death can be attributed to suicide, but if you have any feelings to the contrary I’d encourage you to share them.”

“I can’t really say,” Pansy said. “My parents are divorced and I spent my childhood with my mother. I never knew my father very well. This would have been our first visit since the war, but you can see how that ended.”

Despite the tragic nature of the recent events, she looked collected, even while discussing topics that must have been painful and difficult for her family.

 _She’s definitely got nerve_ , Harry thought.

“Did your father live alone?”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes. I’m his only living child, you see. I had a brother but he died at a very young age. My mother lives in France, so I don’t spend a lot of time in England. I’m not really the best person to answer these questions.”

Harry committed everything she’d said to memory, linking the members of the Parkinson family together in his head. Pansy’s story was really quite morbid, but he’d heard worse, and she already seemed resigned to the reality of the bloodstains in the library. It occurred to him that she was much braver than he’d previously assumed.

He pulled a scrap of parchment and a self-inking quill from his robes, scribbling down the address she could mail any questions to.

“If there’s anything else, you know where to find me,” he said, handing her the slip of paper.

Harry stood and looked her over one last time. Her dark chestnut hair looked soft and full of life, the one beautiful thing in such a gloomy house.

When he was almost out of earshot Pansy said something, catching him just before he left.

“Thank you,” she offered, her legs crossed at the knee like she was impersonating a real adult.

“For what, Miss. Parkinson?”

“For treating me like everyone else,” Pansy said.

A twisting, fluttering feeling in his chest was the last thing that Harry expected to feel at her words, but it was undeniably there. Leaning against the doorframe, he replied.

“Like I said, if you need anything else you know where to find me.”

Harry spared her a thoughtful look, as if she were slowly changing from one person to another in front of his very eyes. Ignoring whatever impulse was taking root in him, he turned and stepped into the hall, the dark blood from the library and Pansy’s large eyes imprinted on his mind.

\----

In the office a week later, Harry was interrupted from his work by one of the newer trainees.

“There’s a woman here to see you, Auror Potter. She says you investigated her father’s suicide.”

Harry tossed his quill on the desk and went around the corner, easily finding Pansy in the hallway just outside the office. She looked at the different aurors in their official red robes or black field attire with a bored expression. Once she spied Harry her eyes focused in interest.

“How can I help you?” he asked, taking her in. She was wearing perfume, he realized, and nylon stockings with a black skirt and fashionable boots.

“I need you for something else,” Pansy said, the directness of her gaze cutting straight through the low rumble of conversation. He was surprised to hear his own words coming from her, like he hadn’t expected her to be listening.

“Off the clock, I’m guessing,” Harry said.

“They did say you were smart.” The corner of her mouth inched upward, and it was then that he understood her.

“I’ve got some time right now if you’re interested in...discussing the case.”

Pansy lead the way out of the Auror Office, glancing back at him over her shoulder. The tingling in his stomach returned--fiercer than before and rushing over him in a wave of dark hair and fair skin.

_fin_


End file.
